


ritual, habitual

by pistolgrip



Category: Granblue Fantasy (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, Mutual Pining, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-12-20 18:26:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21061175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pistolgrip/pseuds/pistolgrip
Summary: A night of drinking after another successful mission.





	ritual, habitual

Accepting these invitations gives Six a feeling of loss—not of his time or money, but of something that leaves him hollowed out and replaced with a version of him he doesn't recognize.

Six never drinks when he goes out. He hates the taste of any alcohol, and he can discern its taste no matter how watered down it is or how many other flavours mask it. Siete knows that about him, too, but it hasn't quashed his habit to ask Six out for drinks after a job well done.

Siete doesn't pressure him to join if he refuses, but somehow, it becomes a habit for Six to accept. Routine is familiar and safe, but anything with Siete is far from it; from the moment Six accepts to the moment they return to the base, they have a well-practised dance atop burning flames and blades' edges. Siete will order one drink for Six and never comment on how he ignores it. Six will accept the drink regardless, give it one sip, and leave it for the rest of the night. Siete will have a variety of conversation, but he'll inevitably find himself in one of three topics once he's at the point where he sways back and forth, his grin too bright to be aiming it at someone like—

"Six!" Siete exclaims, moving much too close into his space. "How you feelin'?" The attention Siete has on people is already uncanny without inebriation; intoxicated individuals are, from experience, supposed to be chatty to everyone, but at this point in the night, he'll never look at anyone other than Six.

He feels his face flush hot under his mask, even though he knows as a fact that the single hard cider has no effect on his cognition. "I feel nothing. As always, I am sober."

"Not what I was asking, but nothing about your past lets you have fun, huh?" Siete mumbles. "You can't... even enjoy regular life because of your trauma, and then you can't get drunk about it because of your _training._"

His voice is filled with disgust. Six's flight or fight response activates, wanting to do both in the face of Siete's rambling.

He steadies his breathing. He knows this is part of their routine. This is act two, _Siete __remembers the __horrors__ of Six's past_. "You know that the circumstances of my upbringing were by design. Being raised by the Karm clan is unnatural to begin with, and my own was moreso outside of that. My experiences were not universal among the clan."

He watches Siete's expression twist into a deeper frown and wonders why he's trying to explain this to him yet again. "With that in consideration, my impression was that the Karm clan did not enjoy much outside of duty, including voluntary alcohol consumption. I may be wrong."

Siete makes him feel restless. He opens his mouth to start talking again, and then Siete sighs and aims a pout in his direction, as if it would soothe his jittery nerves. (Miraculously, it does.) "That _did_ make it sounds like I though it was your fault, huh? S'not true. Thanks for goin' out with me tonight, anyway. You know I always enjoy these nights."

He stares. He doesn't know if he should focus on Siete's statement that he _enjoys_ times like these, or that his scorn is with Six's history and not him. One of them is easier to process than the other, and he decides that it's a waste of resources for anyone to feel that way about his past. He can neither change nor forget it, even if he wanted to try. "I find that hard to believe."

"Why would I not?"

"I cannot meet your energy, nor your penchant for alcohol consumption. Any one of your other friends would be better predisposed to celebration than I."

"Maybe so."

"If this is your attempt of bringing even the slightest hint of contentedness into my life, you fail every night."

"But you keep comin'."

For a long, few seconds, Six has no response. "You cannot be trusted alone."

"Ouch," Siete says, clutching his heart in mock hurt. He nearly tips backwards with how enthusiastic the motion is, and Six catches his chair. "Am I _really _that transparent about inviting you out?"

"You've revealed your intentions to me about these outings every single time you become inebriated."

"I sure do, don't I." Siete looks at him, cheek in hand. His elbow is sliding across the table, slipping down, but his attention is rapt on Six. They've been here two hours and Siete's just topped off his fourth drink, and Six should be more annoyed that he's starting to slip for the night, but his tangled emotions are an unspoken part of their dance. "It sucks that no matter how I try, I just can't find anythin' that'll put a smile on your face," Siete slurs, mouth moving against his hand.

Six sighs, resigning himself to another night of questions he can't answer about his past and contemplating how far his feelings go for Siete, and then the man himself ruins it by saying:

"But, y'know, Six. S'what I love about you."

He says that, and then he slumps over the table, grinning, one eye closed as he rests his head on his arm.

Six has never once _wished_ he could be inebriated before this moment.

He knows from his training and his personal boundaries that it's impossible for him to feel the effects without serious risk to his body, but that immediate, irrational thought makes him reach for his now-warm cider. His nose twitches as it predictably does nothing for him except help him stall his reply further. "Excuse me?" he dares to say once he's regained control of his thoughts long enough to allow Siete to blindside him with whatever his response will be.

With Siete, that's all any conversation is—stumbling and trying to recover, only to be repeatedly swept away by him. "Love it," Siete mumbles like he's sleep-talking. "Love you."

"You... enjoy that I am incapable of living a regular life?" The word _love _is still too difficult to say, even in quoting him. Siete hardly sounds serious enough about this line of thought to warrant entertaining the idea, and if Six were to entertain it, his fall would accelerate. He doesn't want to give too much thought about from where he would fall and into what.

"No. No, no no no," Siete says, nudging him with a hand. His eyes look faraway, but not in the way drunkenness would make his gaze glassy. His tone turns deadly serious, the same tone he has when he finds someone abusing their power. "No, I hate _that _part for you. If I could... go back in time and give them a piece of my mind, I would."

Six doesn't have to ask who _they_ are, because Siete continues unprompted. "Like your father, who thought it was a good idea to isolate you instead of... nurturing you. And your powers. Or that guy from your father's journal. He showed up and then just left you? _After _all of that? What the _hell._" Siete's tirade goes on, eyes closing and mumbling into the crook of his elbow, casually verbalizing everything that Six has been trying to come to terms with.

His father made the wrong choices and isolated Six so completely that when he burst through the cracks, he took everyone down with him. His care was entrusted to a man that left him behind with enough souvenirs that Six believed he was the anchor in his life. It takes time for Six to work through the parts of his history that he never questioned, sewn into the very fabric of his soul—and Siete stormed in, describing every last ugly detail before ending with _If I could __have __be__en__ there for you back then, I would __have_.

Siete shouldn't be allowed to understand others so well, especially not Six, who barely understands himself. Who allowed him to be so disarming that even _Six_ admitted his past to him? Who allowed Siete to be livid about past injustices for his sake and then say _love you_?

Siete should know that Six's past attachments have caused more harm than good and impact his current relationships. _T__hat _realization brings him distress too, and he takes another drink of his cider. It's gotten worse, and he's not sure whether he's talking about the situation or the taste.

"No," Siete repeats. His eyes open with that same graveness, but this time he's looking at Six as he weighs his next words. He can't decide whether he likes—_prefers_ drunk Siete when he's about to fall asleep, unguarded and too tired to keep up a fake smile, or like now, when he has enough energy that Six doesn't have to look after him too closely.

The corner of Siete's mouth twitches, and instead of letting his normal grin take over, baring his teeth and dimpling his cheek, he holds it back. His eyes sparkle all the same, and that's how Six knows it's one of his true smiles. The noise continues around them, but that smile makes him feel like they have their own private space.

"Six, I love that you go _on _and _on _about never being able to find happiness _ever _again. And then you do!" The grin doesn't stay private for long. Siete's voice raises into a shout by the end of the sentence.

"I haven't," Six says, trying to regain control of the situation and the feelings rising within him. He swallows. "I'll never—"

"You _have_, Six. You'll never forget where you came from. But you don't have to stay there." Siete sits back up, slamming his hand on the table. The noise makes his ears twitch, and he looks around to make sure they haven't drawn attention, but Siete moves a hand on top of his and his train of thought stops. His mind goes so blank, it's as if he's never had a single thought in his life before that moment.

Siete sways back and forth, blinking rapidly as he looks up at him. Their physical point of connection is the steadiest thing Siete has to offer. "There's still _something_ important to you. Isn't there? A reason you're still alive? Everything you were telling me after.. after... the Six-Ruin Fist."

Six can't take any more of Siete burrowing further into his psyche so he can bring it to the surface. It belongs nowhere near as jovial as a bar with a happy, drunk Siete. "Why do you care so much?" he snaps, balling his hands into fists, pulling away from his hand much too late.

"Is it _that _weird?" Siete's words are slurring worse now, gravity weighing his head down. "To see you have a good time. For a moment. Like, just one."

Like everything he's said in the past few hours, he says _that _so effortlessly that Six wants to believe him. "What do you want from me?" he asks, instead of addressing the comment. No matter how he chooses to approach this, he'll lose, with nothing to show for his fight but fuel onto the fire of his uncertain feelings.

Siete hums with contentment, like he's said and done something _helpful_. "Just told you," he says in a sing-song tone, interrupting his own words with a yawn. When he slumps back over, his head knocks over an empty glass; Six reaches out to catch it before it falls, his arm landing over Siete's shoulders.

They've both dressed down from their uniforms, Siete abandoning his cape and some of his outer armour at the beginning of the night, leaving Six weak to his warmth. Siete makes no comment about the contact, and Six pulls away from him, unwilling to examine the disappointment that comes with doing so.

Siete's sentences are taking longer and longer to form, but they never stop coming. "Though. I guess admitting happiness might be a lot to ask for you, Mister _Merriment-doesn't-exactly-come-easily-to-me_."

_Incorrect, _Six thinks. He can't use the excuse of drunkenness to follow the thought with this: _Some days I spend with you, I think I get close_. The candidness of the thought arrests him, springing readily to his mind when he's not paying enough attention. He's losing his control, and the entire time, Siete's never stopped talking. He anchors himself with Siete's long-winded musings, a constant in their inanity that _might_ allow Six to think about something that aren't his feelings.

Seeing as his feelings directly involve Siete, he doubts it.

"–happiness, but maybe _amusement_. Or, I don't know, a diversion from the _horrors of your mind_." Siete's voice drops low, and Six frowns with the thought that he's being mocked. He shakes it from his mind as he sees the smile on Siete's face that tells him Siete thinks his impression of Six's voice was good. "_I _might never see you smile. But even if it's not me that sees it, I hope you have someone you wanna show your smile to one day."

"Is this going anywhere?" Six says, cutting him off. He wants to leave and avoid thinking about this for a long time before ultimately failing.

Siete looks at him. Six's mask is useless under that gaze. He's never felt more exposed in his life than under Siete's attention. "Mostly, it's just me sayin' the same things in different ways." He raises an eyebrow before laying his head into his arms, crossed on the table. "But I'll think about it later. G'night, Six. You're a cool guy."

"If you fall asleep, I won't forgive you," Six says in a rush as Siete's eyes droop closed. "I refuse to end another outing by carrying you back to the base."

Siete doesn't answer, and he knows he's lost him. He's irritated, as he knows he should be, but it's not the _only_ thing he feels as he hands over rupies and stares at Siete's resting form.

This is the part of him he doesn't recognize as he reattaches Siete's cape around his shoulders before taking some of his armour, the part that cares more for him than he should. He's losing more and more of himself the closer he gets to Siete, and he doesn't know how much of his lost parts he wants to keep and how many he wants to keep abandoning.

_You won't forget where you came from. But you don't have to stay there._

"_Staying there_ is the safest option for both myself and everyone around me," he mutters. Siete, fast asleep, doesn't respond.


End file.
